Synopses & Reviews
My Husband’s Eyebrows is a humorous examination and honest celebration of Grabel’s long marriage — its good, its bad, its ugly — told through a collection of prose poems and poetry, punctuated by the author’s richly colored, exuberant, exaggerated illustrations.
Review
"Maintaining that “opposition is the lifeblood,” Leanne Grabel takes us on a savvy, sassy, biting history of her thirty-eight-year marriage. She may — as she asserts at one point — always regret each snappish remark, each of her self-described crocodile bites. But we don’t. We welcome the rub, the friction, the sparks emanating from this artist’s poems and vivid illustrations. What verve! Generously candid and open-hearted, this book gives us its bracing gift: “full spectrum” marital truths that are as irresistible as “the cream in the center of the bon bon." Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita
Review
"Anyone familiar with Leanne Grabel’s writing or her graphic and performing art will recognize the quick and, at times, acid wit, her dance with impulse and anxiety and a demanding sense of independence. What readers of this prose poetical chronicle of her marriage My Husband’s Eyebrows will find new is how the long trace of time in that marriage imprints a newfound ability to reflect on that past, a broadening sense of trust and even a patience that early in the text she says does not feel capable. Patience, Dante’s highest virtue, makes for a beautiful and transformative honesty, a song of acceptance and appreciation: “I thought I’d never see It again/ I mean him in the glint of/ my hunger..." Charles Seluzicki, author of Elegiac
Review
"Witty. Fun. Honest. Deeply loving. Unforgivable. Over the top. TMI. Delightful. Did I say loving? Plus, those wild illustrations." Penelope Scambly Schott, author of A is for Anne
About the Author
Leanne Grabel is a writer, illustrator, and performer in love with mixing genres. Her first collaboration was with a bongo player and sax player in the mid-70s and her most recent collaborations were with filmmaker Penny Allen and dancer/choreographer Gregg Bielemeier. She has written & produced numerous multi-media shows, including “The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression” and “Anger: The Musical.” Grabel’s graphic novel, Brontosaurus Illustrated, recently serialized in The Opiate, was published by The Opiate Books in 2022. Grabel is the 2020 recipient of the Bread & Roses Award for contributions to women’s literature in the Pacific Northwest. She and her husband started and ran Cafe Lena, a poetry hub and restaurant, throughout the 90s. Grabel is a retired special education teacher, the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of two nubbins, Ophelia and Elliot.